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From the trade show last month. Bad lighting in the hall. As an architect I feel offended by how bad the lighting was. Even worse attendance. Complete waste of money.

Hey everyone. Hope y'all are doing well! We're in Jamestown New York for a family function. We're picking up Bri from the airport in a few hours. I dislike New York mostly but it's nice around here. We drove up from Texas which was pretty miserable this time of year. After this it's back to cheese land for a while.

So, the first game I played that was made by Obsidian was Knights of the Old Republic 2. It was to be representative of the early productions of the studio. Yes, admittedly, it was rushed, technically very flawed and was clearly lacking content that was cut to make the deadline. But it was still a gem, inserting shades of grey in the normally two-toned world of the Star Wars universe, and in doing so making the world feel that much more real and worthwhile. The characters were believable; they didn’t just exist simply to further the story, but they each had their own agenda, and they were all tied to the player character in their own unique way, as was slowly revealed throughout the story. And this is what I feel Obsidian so often manages to add to a world, whether it’s an Obsidian original, or borrowed from another’s intellectual property. They take their narratives seriously; they build their worlds to be believable and they allow their characters to live their own lives and not simply be window dressing for the main characters. I remember going through Mask of the Betrayer, the Neverwinter Nights 2 DLC, for the first time and being awed by the gravity of its story. This was a story of mythological proportions, pitting you against the laws of its universe and death itself, and in a way where you were never quite sure what exactly was the right choice to make. The ending did not offer simple black and white choices, a hallmark of the sort of Obsidian games that I hold dear, and of which I cherish fond memories. I kept following Obsidian throughout the years, and each time I would look forward with anticipation to whatever the studio would come up with next. Fallout: New Vegas was a huge success, of course. And when the studio started doing Kickstarters for their own IP, there was absolutely no doubt in my mind to throw some money their way. It did not leave me disappointed, both Pillars of Eternity games wove exactly the sort of deep narrative, rich with lore and worldbuilding, that I have come to expect from the studio. Remarkably, the studio has not lost its soul throughout the years, as exemplified by the 2022 release of Pentiment. Set in the fictional town of Tassing in historical 16th century Bavaria, this game plays like a detective story. But the catch is that actual detectiving is a fool’s errand. Whoever you end up picking as the culprit, you never have enough evidence to be certain that you have picked the right perp. Not that the powers that be mind very much; they’re happy so long as someone is seen to be executed for the crimes. You could say that the true objective of Pentiment is to unravel the underlaying plot, and to eventually confront the real thread spinner that has immersed the quiet town of Tassing in a state of chaos. But I don’t think that’s quite right. For me, the real objective of the game is to, if only for a moment, make it possible for you to transport yourself to a different time and a different place, and to contemplate what life was like for people in those days, and what kind of choices they were confronted with as the last vestiges of the old were being blown away by the winds of modernity. And now, it will not be long before their next much anticipated game will come out. I will be honest, when I first heard of the studio working on what was then still considered to be the studio’s answer to Skyrim, I was sceptical. It seemed like they might be biting off more than they could chew, and I felt the sort of formula behind Skyrim didn’t seem to play to the studio's strength. But now that I’ve seen the first previews, I’m glad to see that it’s actually nothing like Skyrim. It seems smaller in scope, less focused on a large open world, and actually aiming more for a smaller, more intimate experience. A lot has been made about the combat, and luckily the latest news seems to be that there’s been a lot of improvements on that front. But what I find more interesting is that once again Avowed looks to have characters with their own voices and their own agendas. And once again there seems to be a rich story with plenty of mysteries to unravel. I honestly can’t wait, and I’ve always taken the week after the release free from work, so I can fully enjoy it without any distractions. I’m sure I’ll have a great time.

I completed Pillars of Eternity a couple of days ago. I had such a good time, I haven't played an old school RPG for a couple of years despite it being my favorite genre and Obsidian made an absolute banger here. It had a really good story, and not having the curtain pulled back until the very end made all the reveals very impactful. I was planning to play something that's totally different between Pillars 1 & 2 so I didn't get bored with the real-time and pause genre but after the last couple of hours of PoE1 I just have to know what happens next now so I've started playing Deadfire immediately. I've basically just started, I'm about to repair the ship and leave the first island. It was a bit jarring for the first hour or so with the new UI and going from a typical medieval setting to a swashbuckling pirate adventure but it's already obvious that the quality of the writing and RPG mechanics are so much improved here. I'm very much looking forward to seeing the rest of the game.

Pre-Avowed playthrough of Deadfire completed. Used some light mods, mandatory Community Patch, plus XP rebalance, which worked pretty well. I think this is a playthrough I enjoyed the most. Small narrative additions and DLCs, I think make Deadfire much stronger narratively, and enough time has passed for me to be able to assess it with a fresher pair of eyes.

Less than 1 minute in and I already hate everyone involved.

I'm off to donate blood again tomorrow. It usually just takes an hour of my time, and at least I feel like I'm contributing something. I have that universal donor O-negative blood that is much sought by emergency rooms. At my age it usually takes a few days to recover my energy, but at least I'm getting rid of more senescent cells. (Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.) It's just in time too; there's more snow on the way in the forecast. We may get up to three inches by Friday. I think I'll plan on staying home and reading a good book (The Bookseller of Florence by Ross King).

I've taken up the neckbeardiest of hobbies, painting Warhammer figurines. I don't play the game, I just like coloring in little dudes. It's like playing dress up with really small dolls who are evil robots. It's fun and I can watch Star Trek at the same time.

Yes I found PoE2 improved on almost every level and PoE1 was a great game I particularly liked the open-world design of PoE2 and the whole sailing mechanics And great party members to interact with, my favourite being Xoti with her cute Southern accent

Doesn't seem like they've learned much. https://twistedvoxel.com/ea-ceo-dragon-age-the-veilguard-failed-due-to-lack-of-live-service-elements/

Moscow bomb kills pro-Russia paramilitary leader | Russia | The Guardian

"I need a quick store run, better make a short list since I'll forget something otherwise." "diet soda, yogurt, frozen veggies, almond flour" *walk away, remember something, better add it, look at list* What I actually wrote: "shadow, yoda, tundra, diamond floor" WTF brain.

Eh, honestly, Sapkowski is just a Polish guy, who doesn't care much for videogames. He has a formal, direct way of speaking which comes out as critical or negative when translating into English. There are bitter undertones to the English article, that I don't sense at all when reading the original. All he says about games and CDPR is very respectful, and praises them multiple times but he just doesn't throw empty praise the way english speakers would do. He didn't play Witcher games, and is familiar with "graphic materials" only - which could be screenshots, or trailers or snippets of the game. What he does though is draw a clear line between his work, and CDPR's adaptation. He isn't critical of their work, he just considers it to be its own thing. A new work based on his characters, not a continuation of it - and as someone who read all the books - he is absolutely right.

Fortunately Nazi Germany is the one and only example ever of a strongman getting elected and turning a country into an authoritarian state, so it's fine.

Started out just playing around with my own map to test some stuff but sort of never stopped so now it's a wallpaper. Hope you like it. Here are HQ image downloads: 4K plain: https://drive.proton.me/urls/32KKBTZCVM#MYLolStaN4em 4K ultrawide plain: https://drive.proton.me/urls/6T90PG8P20#sB24q7rgLSB7 4K Windows 100% scale: https://drive.proton.me/urls/JP3R5DPGS0#406FJv9VkOvG 4K Windows 125% scale: https://drive.proton.me/urls/MH9QYS895R#94iEVgwEvO0m 4K ultrawide Windows 100% scale: https://drive.proton.me/urls/492C91HV64#0oAGQ5V41YO6 4K ultrawide Windows 125% scale: https://drive.proton.me/urls/DFZS3G98J4#opES5sA2x2qK 4K Mac: https://drive.proton.me/urls/QBN6BQ4BX8#pfBL5fPYEacq 4K ultrawide Mac: https://drive.proton.me/urls/H1KCEMH890#HQBHvyyqRxZX If you like it and use it post a screenshot so I can see if works out well with the Windows bar on the bottom. I only have a mac. Regards / b

5 hours into Avowed. Seems good. More linear than Skyrim, but still a bit open-worldy. Maybe Witcher 3 is a good comparison? Feels like the PC has too much special stuff thrown at them. You're the king's envoy, but also some kind of special godlike. Just either one could have made an interesting story. Only bug I've ran into so far is people's hair having that problem of springing down from default position when a new camera angle is loaded.

https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-says-reciprocal-tariffs-coming-thursday-2025-02-13/ Also, Trump doesn't know what VAT is, as he wrote on Truth Social. "For purposes of this United States Policy, we will consider Countries that use the VAT System, which is far more punitive than a Tariff, to be similar to that of a Tariff. Sending merchandise, product, or anything by any other name through another Country, for purposes of unfairly harming America, will not be accepted"

You're just jealous because he's finally found the true love that you never have.

Oh, I didn't know that you get discount on pre-order if you have Gamepass. Still, I am happy to wait those couple extra days. I don't think I will struggle avoiding spoilers. I will save those $25 to get the game later, on a proper platform once it gets discounted later down the line (assuming of course, that I want to play it ever again... finger's crossed). You might have noticed that Critical Role joined Mercer in the sequel - companions are mostly voiced by CR cast, and they got some other major roles (Eothas, narrator, Imps). It was definitely a marketing thing as well, though it didn't seem to help them much considering how much Deadfire underperformed initially. Eh, Obsidian has always drawn heavily from P&P, and both PoEs used story adventure sequences to expand scenarios that the game could support. Personally, I still think the ones from White March are the most interesting ones, but Deadfire is good. Neketaka is massive - it is a Hub you will be visiting and revisiting throughout the game, so my advice is to not spend too much time there are any given time. Do a major quest or two if you feel like it, gather quests and bounties and sail out. You can explore districts and all that they have to offer at your leisure, no need to try to complete it all in one go. While initially jarring I think party of 5 is a good choice. You still have a lot of flexibility in how you build your party, and I didn't feel loosing the 6th member impacted negatively my enjoyment of the game. As someone who micromanages my parties, 5 was a very good sweet spot where everyone is actively working on accomplishing something.

"woke design" = omg the game has wimmin!!!

Really curious about performance benchmarks re: Avowed. Requirements aren't ultra steep, but a good notch above Outer Worlds prior. Nowadays you can't tell anymore what those requirements are for anyway unless specifically stated (which Obsidian don't do). 720p/30fps? 4K/144 fps? Upscaled? Native? With FrameGen or without? And even then..... I mean, Stalker 2 obviously runs worse than "advertised". Whereas KCD2 runs massively better, with even a GTX 1060 still able to churn out 50-60ish FPS in 1080P native, rather than the 30fps that was advertised (on lower settings, mind). I wish there were more projects like this, btw: Taking established tech that may not be the absolute most cutting edge anymore (OH NO! NO HARDWARE BASED RAYTRACING IN THIS ONE!). But that by now is understood and mastered by a dev team. That's how some decent and optimized sequels got made: Underworld 2, Thief 2, Shock 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Pillars 2, Police Academy 2 (no wait!)... It being easier to follow and manage, mainly. Unlike Owlcat, Obsidian seems to have realized that the Infinity Engine was, after all, an (A)D&D 2e game affair. That means only mages had a bigger arsenal of tools at their disposal. Whereas in newer systems, even fighters tend to be kinda non-mages that throw non-spells left and right (28:20 in).

My early thoughts are that Deadfire feels like Neverwinter Nights 2 and it's expansions in the Infinity Engine, in a really good way. I noticed that there are Critical Role portraits and voicepacks, I wonder if the popularity of shows like that and LA by Night had anything to do with Obsidian going so heavily for that pen & paper vibe with all the skill checks and little details like everyone reacting to you being a godlike. I think that's amazing by the way and I'm all for it, but it's crazy to think how much effort that must have taken, they went way above and beyond anything I've seen before in an RPG. It's super impressive to see how much work and talent Obsidian poured into Deadfire. I've made it to Neketaka and I'm overwhelmed and intimidated by the size of the city, let alone the rest of the game. I have a list of all the companions and sidekicks and where to recruit them, so I'm just ticking those off initially, so far they all seem like an interesting bunch. Did Obsidian say why they reduced the party size to 5? I'd guess it's because it's easier to balance the roleplaying side of things but for combat it's a bit like losing a limb.

Hey guys, I just come by to say hi. It feels great to see this forum still active.

Yeah, honestly, during my first playthrough I was rather lukewarm on PoE1 - I liked it, but thought story was meandering. But, that final reveal ties things up so nicely, I ended up immediately starting 2nd playthrough, doing a very compressed playthrough reading every single ingame book I could find and backed the sequel without the hesitation. I just hope Avowed will be on the level.

The latest Community Blog, from @JadedWolf, is now live: As you review this latest addition, I would love to hear from those who might be interested in submitting experiences about playing Avowed for the March edition: please PM if this is of interest

Swen Vincke likes this. (KCD II also managed to soar past the 1 million units day 1).

"Even if Trump is elected, nothing will change," said the stupid bastard.

New trailer for one of my favorite games. It's come a long way.

Have I posted this before, can't recall. I still find it funny tho, and revisit it occasionally. He's apparently taking a bit of a break (at least social media) after his last album. Funny how I remember (and liked) his 80's hits playing constantly on MTV etc - but it's his more current "adult" stuff (and his knowledge and humorous attitude) that I admire/respect and will remember him for. Edit: anyone who warms up before a concert with Frank Sinatra tunes is ok in my book.

In the days of yore there was no income tax in the US, but tariffs were levied and financed the federal government. Several attempts of introducing an income tax and the SCOTUS striking much of it down eventually led to the 16th amendment, giving congress the constitutional right to set income taxes without apportionment to the states. The amendment was ratified because Republicans and Democracts alike were of the opinion that tariffs unduly affected people with lower incomes, something a progressive income tax would not. The politicians of yore knew what the current Republican Administration apparently forgot: who actually pays for tariffs.

Any suprised reaction is predicated on Bruce clicking the link and properly comprehending the contents. I'm betting that you'll be the ones having a surprised Pickachu face when he replies.

More importantly Kingdome Come2 is coming to GOG in "spring". WIll happily wait for that release (and hopefully play the first game until then).

Well there is one thing, that they always forget to mention when speaking about inflation not affecting game prices. The move from physical to digital. Even if some games are still released physically, the content of the box today is empty. When the games cost 40 EUR, they gave you tons of paper content like manuals maps etc. And all of this cost a lot of money, which they cut to appease shareholders If I want to have the same content in the box as I had in 2000’s, I have to pay 120EUR + today. Which pretty much covers much more than the inflation

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/ This is insightful and might be helpful in the near future. From 1941.

Damn, and here I am mad that it's set to hit 24 F tomorrow. Though I guess when your infrastructure isn't designed to handle cold (ie no insulation in the walls for pipes) and is crumbling anyways than it's going to hit different.

In b4 Trumpist Bruce defends this as Trump doing Trump things, and we shouldn't take it seriously anyway.

https://www.404media.co/why-this-onlyfans-model-posts-machine-learning-explainers-to-pornhub/

Ok, my small Balance Polishing Mod for Pillars of Eternity 1 has just been published on Nexus : Small Balance Polishing Mod at Pillars of Eternity Nexus - Mods and community Be aware this is still initial realease. Any feedback would be appreciated. It is way less ambitious than PoE2 BPM (modding PoE1 is much more difficult), but it should at least "fix" Rogues, racials and provide a bit more variety for semi-optimal party compositions.

If only both of them could be shot into space

acting president of usa elon just start some idiotic spat with cultist of nurgle asmongold over path of exile 2 and lost peak politic

Civilization VII preview: The most complete package since IV - Ars Technica

Best adventure game ever. And it is on GOG. Eric the Unready If you haven't played it, why are we even friends?

looks good. I finally installed KC:D1, and am looking forward to trying it out within the last couple months. I will probably wait till I am done with Avowed though.

The variance in those attribute spreads will make almost no difference in combat. If I had to pick one it would be the rightmost because INT influences the AoE size of White Flames. RES 16 is enough for most dialogue (and you can add an intem with bonus RES, too). Estoc and Pollaxe is generally a good pick for Paladins, especially if you also take Coordinated Attacks and later get the Blade of the Endless Paths (unique Estoc) and Spectacular Spetum (Pollaxe). Both have Marking which stacks with Coordinated Attacks. So you can give stackable +20 accuracy to a party member who attacks the sme target as you which can be really helpful. In case of Kind Wayfarer however dual wielding is a good alternative because every strike of Flames of Devotion + White Flames (it's a Full Attack, so both weapons will strike) will trigger a healing. That's two healing procs instead of one. It's not that important though - Flames of Devotion has only 2 uses per encounter.

Oh look, I found a video that agrees with me, hence I liked it. He goes into possible industry reasons/decisions for the trend but for me as a watcher: ---2-3 years per 6-10 eps season = me unable to remember the 1st season and practically having to rewatch that first, making me not want to watch to begin with ---once the pattern is known, it's a self-fulling prophecy: ppl going "I'll wait for more seasons before watching/investing time" can = cancelled show because 1st season isn't watched enough in the first month or two ---Netflix is definitely the biggest offender but it's a streaming-series trend overall

i would also add that various streamlines mechanics have actually allowed for bigger mechanical depth. replacing most of the random buffs/debuffs in poe1 with the inspiration and affliction system is at, first glance, a huge streamlining. but it opens up the door for a lot more interesting combat interactions (since afflictions and inspirations counter each other), it also makes a lot of stuff easier to reason about. also a lot of mechanics (esp the ones that boeroer mentions - PEN/AR and interrupts) benefit from i think what sawyer called "de-murking." Making them more obvious and impactful. Interrupts were barely worth paying attention to in poe1, but are really critical for mastering deadfire. Same thing with PEN vs AR compared to DR.

The mod is done and tested, but too big to be uploaded here. I guess it will be direct on Nexus then. I'll test for a short while before publishing it. Seems to work fine, and even the rogue changes don't feel gamebreaking.

JA3 is fantastic if you like turn based combat. Get it.

So Jagged Allience3 is being offered in this months Humble Choice. I remember some people here played it extensively. How good is it? Worth picking up by a non-JA fan? (I bought and launched JA2 a while ago on steam, but never spent a meaningful amount of time with it).